K-Central trailed by as many as 22 points in the first half, but Williams said there was no quit on the bench.

“We just don’t give up on each other,” he said. “We’re all family. I don’t want to go out because this is my last year. I feel like if we just stick together as a team we can do it.”

The win didn’t result in any new hardware – that might come Wednesday in the regional championship game at Loy Norrix High School against a good Ann Arbor Skyline team – but it guaranteed Williams and his mostly young K-Central teammates another game.

Williams, one of two seniors on a K-Central roster that features five juniors, five sophomores and a freshman, scored all six of his points in the second half and he helped lead a defensive charge that effectively slowed down a Rams team that was favored to win and playing like it in the first half by driving and getting to the basket easily.

The Maroon Giants outscored the Rams (19-5) by a margin of 42-23 in the second half.

Williams was a freshman on the 2011 Maroon Giants team that won the second of the program’s back-to-back state titles. He said he’s doing all he can to help the program return to glory.

“I was a part of it my freshman year, then we had the slump,” he said, referring to K-Central’s one-and-done postseason in 2012 and its two-and-done run last year. “I just feel like we have to keep working as hard as we can and I’m going to do all I can to get back to there. With the team that we have now, if we just buckle down and keep fighting we’ll do it.”

One of the youngsters who helped lead the way Monday was 6-foot-3 sophomore Devon Daniels, who scored a game-high 25 points. He kept K-Central alive by scoring 13 of the team’s 20 points in the first half.

The Maroon Giants will have to deal with Skyline's Tristan Wilson on Wednesday. The 6-foot-8 forward recorded 26 points, 12 rebounds and 10 blocks in his team's 68-57 win over Lansing Eastern in Monday's other regional semifinal game.

Daniels said a win over a veteran Holt team that features seven seniors, gives the Maroon Giants a bit more reassurance moving forward.

“It boosts our confidence,” he said. “It just shows us that we can be a good team.”